


In Emergency Situations, Your Sword Can Provide Medical Attention

by RokettoMusashi



Category: The Legend of Zelda & Related Fandoms, The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword
Genre: Author has Really Loving Fi Disease, But I've never actually written violence or read it so... i dont know if its Bad, Fi is starting to develop emotions and she's stressed out and doesn't know wtf, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, I made the boy and his sword Hug, Link is having a bad time all around but his sword is sweet to him, Platonic Cuddling, Platonic Relationships, Please be nice to me I haven't written for this fandom in FOUR YEARS, Rating/cw is for Ghirahim being Ghirahim, Selectively Mute Link (Legend of Zelda), Sickfic, Slow burn on the hurt so the comfort is better, This was going to just be a cute sickfic, Whump, Zelink is mentioned & confirmed on Link's side, and then fi started having an existential crisis in the corner, just put it there to be safe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-11
Updated: 2021-01-11
Packaged: 2021-03-15 07:00:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,761
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28684452
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RokettoMusashi/pseuds/RokettoMusashi
Summary: He’s certain he’ll stay with Fi forever if she lets him, but even in some darker world where they part ways indefinitely, he knows he’ll still hear her voice in his heart. Urging him, every so often, to slow his stride and look to the bigger picture. Singing numbers and percentages in his ears whenit’s going to be okayisn’t enough, felling his anxious heart with raw data and precise truths.// Link falls ill before taking on the Fire Sanctuary, and the benevolent spirit that sleeps in his sword finds herself unable to keep him from her sights.
Relationships: Fi & Link (Legend of Zelda)
Comments: 22
Kudos: 64
Collections: RaeLynn's Epic Rec List





	In Emergency Situations, Your Sword Can Provide Medical Attention

**Author's Note:**

> It was [Saphruikan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Saphruikan/profile) who first called Link's loftwing "Aepon" and since I heard it at the tender age of 17 I've never been able to accept another name for it. It's just the correct name, and I will never call it anything else as long as I live, so that's what made it in here. 
> 
> I'm taking a break from writing for my normal fandom to enjoy the random burst of Zelda hyperfixation currently gripping at my ankles and pulling me under the water, and as anyone who knows me already knows, that means I'm probably huddled in a corner crying over the friend that lives inside the Master Sword. 
> 
> Uh... here's a sickfic that turned out way bigger because I couldn't stop Having Ideas. It takes place during the quest for the sacred flames! Woo. Lots more details in my rambling tags.

It’s not until Aepon ruffles his feathers with a strident caw that Link realizes he’s dozed again. He comes back to the sky with a jagged jolt, scrambling to grip back onto his loftwing. The sight of the clouds settles his heart after a moment, and Aepon cranes his neck with a shake in that judging way he sometimes does.

 _Okay?_ Link can sense his bird’s voice in their shared headspace. _Back to bed?_

Link takes a moment to assess the question despite already knowing the end of his answer. Of _course_ he’s tired. All the sleep in the world couldn’t satiate him _before_ he had the fate of the world staring him down, and now? Part of him thinks that his partner should be _used_ to him falling asleep in weird places this long into their time together, silenced entirely by the much louder part of him that snaps to focus and pushes forward. They can have that argument later.

 _I’m alright,_ he sends back to his bird. _Thanks for steering._

The boy’s not sure how, but Aepon _definitely_ gives him the side-eye in response. Though his loftwing has been doing most of the work on the short flight back down to Eldin, Link can tell he’s not in top form, hardly the scarlet streak against the clouds that the people of Skyloft are used to. He’s been flying less and less since the surface revealed itself, so it stands to reason the two of them might be a little rusty, but the way Aepon’s lagging combined with his anxious glances backward at Link suggest something more.

 _What about you, buddy?_ Link asks. _Are you doing okay?_

He feels the loftwing tense beneath his fingers, faltering for a moment in flight. With a messy pivot to the side, Aepon looses another raucous caw and dives down toward the crimson column.

 _Okay, okay! I get it!_ The boy makes an attempt to sound stern and commanding, but he can’t help laughing in the middle of the thought. Now and always, it’s no surprise they share a single heart.

* * *

_One tear,_ Link silently repeats to himself, for good measure. _Just one more, how can you mess that up? You can do this. One tear. What are you even worried abou—_

 _Master,_ Fi’s lilting voice echoes through his head. _30 seconds._

 _Right, yes, okay_. He squints, gazing aimlessly at the horizon. The taste of the light fruit still lingers in his mouth, it can’t have been that long already, right? Link moves—he hardly knows where, but what else is new—wandering the spectral mountainside in an attempt to find his final salvation.

Farore’s trial was a learning curve, Nayru’s far easier. Once Link had let the fear of it all pass through him, he found it much easier to keep a level head. All the silent realms require is a steady pace and an even steadier heart, and though he’s gained a notable tendency to overdo _everything_ since first setting out _,_ he also finds the hissing voices of the guardians as they rush him with weapons blazing very persuasive.

He thinks, maybe, that Aepon was onto something, though—having failed Din’s four times already, and feeling like a fifth is right on his tail. He can’t seem to get enough air in his lungs as he runs from tear to tear, and he can feel the foggy sort of haze that’s settled in his chest move up to his brain with every exhausting restart. 

Finally, pulling around the mountain, he spots it—a thin streak of light, barely dissipated, situated right…

...atop the _peak_ of the volcano.

 _Oh, goddess,_ Link cringes, feeling sweat crawling coldly down his neck. At this point in the trial, he can’t tell whether it’s the heat or the fear getting to him. _How did I miss—?_

His feet move faster than his mind. A weak attempt at a sprint turns into a messy leap into the updraft, and he clings to the sailcloth for dear life as he ascends, grip precarious with sweat and slipping all the way. His internal clock is hardly honed, his anxious heart far louder, and he’s torn between asking Fi how long he has and absolutely not wanting to hear her answer. The skies are still bright, for now, and Link pauses for just a moment to catch his breath with his hand against the warm, craggy walls.

 _The trial separates your body from your spirit,_ he thinks, recalling what Fi told him before. He heaves a sigh and presses on, contemplating that if this is how his spirit feels, he’s not entirely sure he wants to go back to his body.

The beam off the tear has faded by the time he spots it, but it’s so tantalizingly close within reach—just a ways down the sandy incline, begging to be captured. Link inches forward eagerly, palm barely outstretched—

He’s pulled downward with a startled yelp, slipping off the lip of the cliffside and landing hard on his back. There’s stars in his vision as the wind’s knocked out of him, every half-breath feeling like he’s swallowing poison. The tear stays still in his peripheral as he passes it by, a string of curses decorating the inside of his head. 

The sandy slope cuts like glass against his fingertips as he wills himself to stop, knowing with certainty that there’s no time at all to scale the mountain once more. He struggles against the humid ache of it all, angling himself upward in an attempt to get back to his feet—

A splash echoes out in the quiet from the general direction of his boots. Link’s blood runs cold.

 _Okay!_ He grits his teeth as the world turns red and angry, as the oppressive heat all around grows heavier and heavier, as goliath footfalls echo through the caves. _Okay, okay, okay! It’s fine! This is fine!_

Five is such a well-rounded number, so lovely to look at, he wants it to be the one so bad. There’s an impulse to crumble clawing at the back of his throat, and he fights it with all he is. He’s tired, and frustrated, and the only thing in the world Link _needs_ is a hug from his best friend, and even something as simple as that all rests upon his ability to do this one—single—thing—

_The truth of it is you were late. You were late, and you failed to protect her._

The sharp hiss of blades scraping against each other brings him away from his racing thoughts, and some raw and primal part of him takes over entirely. Link can see the tear from where he is, still, and he forces himself back to his feet, against the horrible tearing sensation deep in his muscles, rooted and blooming. 

_This trial will test your power,_ Fi had said.

Link lets loose a fierce yell as he fights against the steep cliffside, clambering back up toward the tear. The guardian looms at his back, every puff of its ethereal breath on the boy’s neck another push forward, another ragged sprint. The scarlet tear disappears behind the horizon of the outcropping its resting on, and Link kicks himself up against it with strength quickly waning, fire in his throat and at his back and beneath his feet and all around him—

His legs give out, seemingly all at once. The guardian swings. 

Link feels the blade above him, searing white light that makes him wonder if, perhaps, he should go easier on the next bokoblin he sees. The force of it pulls at his hat, shifting its pointed tip like messy bangs across his eyes. The world is... quiet, around him.

He looks around, vision blurry and heart strangely at ease. The incline no longer pulls at him, the gritty slopes like a stagnant sea below. The tear has vanished, a nonconsenting cushion as he'd toppled to the rocky floor.

There’s a moment of pause, and Link lets out a defeated-sounding laugh. It’s not the most heroic or triumphant way he’s accomplished a goal, but deep within the silent realm where no one but the goddesses themselves are watching, he supposes it’s good enough.

_...caution is important... would advise against… further time within…_

Link wakes up to the voice of his sword, her otherworldly pitches sounding especially dreamlike up against the ineffable realm as he fades in and out of sleep. He makes an attempt to fill in the blanks of what she’s saying, pressing a yawn against his palm.

 _Thanks, Fi,_ he tells her in their shared headspace. _Uh,_ _I just… wanted to lay here… for a moment._

_Understood, Master Link. I will continue to await your arrival back in the physical realm._

Link’s sure it’s not been too long since he dozed off—Fi wouldn’t have let him lose that much time—but the exertion of the trial is already settled in his bones, feeling far less like he’s above ground and much more that he’s swimming through the lava as it bubbles and ebbs around him. 

Miraculously he makes it down the slope without touching any more waking water, slogging back to the gate as soon as he’s sure the path is clear. His fingers tremble in a way he can’t seem to push past as he’s unclipping his earrings to make way for the new ones, and Link sucks in a breath, attempting to align himself up against the fatigue of it all. _You’re safe now,_ he silently reminds himself. _The worst of it is over, for a while at least._

The world turns a blinding white around him, its sheen centering itself and settling down within the burning sun as it rests above. Fi’s there, suddenly, the shining cerulean of her silhouette peering wordlessly over her master as he awakens. Link jolts upward at the sight of her, threatening to knock their heads together if not for Fi’s perfectly-orchestrated sense of grace. She floats out of his way with ease, observing silently.

“ _Don’t scare me like that!_ ” Link fervently signs up at her, his eyes tired and pleading.

“Welcome back, Master,” she says right back—and he _swears_ he can see her holding in a smile. 

A resigned sigh. A weak, noncommittal wave.

“I conjecture your newly acquired Fireshield Earrings will allow you to safely travel in extremely hot areas,” Fi says. “I recommend continuing your search for the sacred flame.”

Link nods, carefully tracing over the jagged shape of the gifts as they hang there. Already, he likes them more than his old ones—powerful immunity aside entirely, red’s always been his favourite colour. There’s a few spots he has in mind—the first, an untread path he spotted during the trial that he remembers being particularly impassable his first time around. In all Eldin’s beauty, he’s getting a little sick of running up and down the volcano, shortcuts notwithstanding. 

“One other inquiry, Master…”

He’s already walking back toward the accursed updraft when Fi continues, and she hovers in perfect pace beside him as she speaks.

“I’ve detected a noticeable spike in your heart rate, recently.”

Link can feel a half-grimace tugging at his lip, one he banks only for fear of it giving him away. It’s the second time today someone he shares a telepathic connection with has paid far too much attention to the wear of his journey dragging his heels, an oddly specific scenario that he finds uncomfortable at best.

“ _That’s hardly of note, Fi,”_ he signs. “ _The silent realms will do that to a guy.”_

Fi pauses to think before speaking again. “The other trials did not seem to elicit this reaction.”

Link swallows dryly, suddenly feeling like he’s hiding something. His hands falter a little as he responds.

“ _This one was… rough. I can’t explain it. It just… took it out of me, I guess.”_

All Fi’s inner workings, Link has learned, come in the form of micro-expressions barely detectable to the human eye. He’s unsure if anyone’s ever been close enough with her to see it before, if he’s the only one with eyes for how she silently becomes lost in thought as she recalculates scenarios and probabilities. She considers his response carefully, with a marked swiftness anyone else might read as unkind, and presses on just as quickly.

“In addition to that,” she continues. “I’ve observed you falling asleep quite often, even more so than your previously established excess.”

Link holds back an ugly-sounding syllable shaped halfway like laughter, briefly wonders if his sword and his loftwing talk behind his back. The embarrassing stories he’s sure they share whenever he goes to sleep, out flying in the starlight and laughing until they weep. Fi probably doesn’t know how to laugh, but he pictures that Aepon’s wicked cackle is more than enough for the both of them. 

“ _Alright, snarky,”_ Link pauses to run his fingers through his bangs, continues with a flourish in his hands that attempts to match her tone. “ _So what’s your aforementioned inquiry?_ ”

Fi wastes no time, peering unemotionally into him.

“These symptoms are congruent with the onset of illness in your species,” she says. “Are you unwell?”

For some reason, the question makes him feel like he’s back in the silent realm, his foot plunged into a puddle of waking water and his blood pounding in his ears. 

Oh no. Oh no, no, _no._

The thing is that Fi’s never wrong about anything. If she’s ever unsure of the outcome of something, Link anticipates she probably just keeps quiet entirely. Since meeting her, there’s never been a single moment where he’s regretted his faith in her advice, and it’s for this reason that he doesn’t understand why every single atom that exists within his body is screaming at him to contradict her.

It’s barely half past noon in Eldin, but the shudder of the magma brings Link back to a cutting sunset in a sacred spring. The memory replays again—a constant companion he’s desperate to make use of—and this time he lets it instead of fighting. Impa’s words disappear somewhere this time, the world blurring except for a single focal point: the ring-shaped burn hugging Zelda’s ankle, visible for only a moment as her dress flows alongside her reluctant stride.

_It took you far too long to get here._

He grits his teeth, willing it to become strength instead of despair. Fi’s never wrong about anything, but she should know better than anyone that some important matters take priority over others.

 _“_ Things are a lot right now,” Link gives her his voice, this time. “I think it’s… catching up to me, is all.” 

Fi floats there, unblinking, and he watches her head tilt a shadow of an inch, a buried action he’s come to recognize as her expeditive mind locking onto a less-present hypothetical. Usually, it’s followed by an additional pause as she pulls together the most effective set of words to tell him, as politely as possible, that he’s acting like kind of an idiot. 

This time, though, she settles upon the suggestion, uncharacteristically accepting of what Link’s said. Something about it feels a little unnerving, he realizes, but he’s certain he couldn’t put words to it even at his best. 

“I understand, Master,” Fi responds. “I will continue to monitor the situation with this new information in mind. Don’t hesitate to call should you require my assistance.”

She returns to the sword at his back without another word, and Link chooses to see it as a blessing rather than succumb to the dull sense of loneliness he feels whenever she rests. He’s fond of Fi as he’s fond of anyone else, and Link likes to think himself good at learning folks who communicate in every way there exists to speak. Fi tends to only say what she’s certain is necessary—paradoxically coating her points in ten more words than she truly needs, yet somehow not veering into territory that reminds the boy of trying to achieve the proper word count on an essay back home. Her matter-of-fact personality constantly leaves him wanting to know less about the crucial information and more about _how she’s doing,_ her everlasting patience and melodic chime of a voice pulling him to ask question after question. 

It’s always a little lonely, when he expects her to say more and she doesn’t. Somehow, this instance feels distinct, and Link wonders if maybe _she’s_ feeling off alongside him, given their connection.

He shakes the thought away, realizing he’s barely been paying attention to his surroundings. He can hear the shrieks of keese up ahead, and he wordlessly prays to Din as she breathes beneath his feet that they’re of the fire variety and not the dark one.

 _I’m probably projecting,_ he tells himself as he’s unsheathing his sword, moving right along. Link gets used to the feeling of the blade in his hand once more, inhaling slowly and with purpose, the way he always does as he’s traversing new terrain. He swallows, ignoring the prickling of pain that comes with it. 

One more flame. It’s _one more_ flame. On the other side of it, he clings to Zelda like he’s never clung to her before, whispering with shaking, folded fingertips that he loves her, he loves her, _he loves her_.

In the daydream, she holds him ten times tighter, her sweet scent dizzying and comforting and _finally,_ _home._ And they sit there in the quiet of it all, and for a moment, the cosmic war raging outside ceases to exist.

Link tightens his grip and charges forward.

* * *

The waters of Lake Floria are annoyingly frigid when Link dives back in, and he wonders why the scale he’s using to swim them doesn’t seem to account for that. He’s only in Faron’s domain for a moment, the quick swim required to address her properly and with the respect she demands, but still the chill of it seems to linger long after he’s left, a fact he’s having trouble not thinking about.

Now, his uniform is bone-dry, the chainmail beneath it no doubt attracting all the heat of the volcano and hastening the process entirely. Yet a shudder still crawls at his back, like a draft he can’t place blowing only on him, masking the warmth of the pulsing earth below. 

He feels _awful_. Since Fi pointed it out, he can’t stop noticing it—the exhaustion is far deeper than he’s felt in a long while, it’s no wonder the night’s sleep didn’t chase it away. What started as an itch at the back of his throat is a raw and present ache now, all his attempts to assuage it with the small amount of water left in his bottle doing little at best. He’s tempted to start swiping handfuls from the basin, but that would require him to get even _closer_ to Scrapper, and nothing in the entire world sounds more wretched than that, right now.

The robot’s voice isn’t pleasant to listen to on Link’s best day, and right now every syllable is like a spike being run through his skull. It only takes a monster _breathing_ in Scrapper’s general direction for him to start screaming at the top of his entirely metaphorical lungs, sirens blaring their cacophonous little song. Link’s not sure who he wants to scream at more—Scrapper himself or the misguided genius who installed that feature. Both are off the table, he decides—in all likelihood neither of them can read sign language, and Link’s never wanted to use his voice less.

The cough he’s been banking presses up against his chest, and he stifles it into his glove, practically whacking himself in the nose with his shield. In the same motion, the Goddess Sword tears through the last bokoblin in the camp, and the sigh of half-exertion-half-relief Link succumbs to catches and turns into more hacking, stuttered breaths. He digs his blade into the soil, leaning on it for balance while starlight swims behind his eyes.

When the doors to the Fire Sanctuary finally open, he doesn’t think it bodes well—how the thick and heavy heat waves that blow back his long hair feel more comforting than unkind. It’s just so _cold_ on the mountaintop, the altitude outweighing the boiling lakes of lava that snake down its face entirely. _It’s that,_ Link tells himself as he’s practically falling down the stairs of the dungeon. _Please, just, let it be that._

* * *

Another arrow whistles past his ears, a millimeter shy of grazing him. He can hear the bokoblins a few paces behind him, their throaty cries up against the sound of horns and frantic footsteps. Link runs, and runs, and runs—the deep-seated burning in his sword arm matched only by the threat of his legs to give out. It’s a miracle he manages the coordination to undo his pouch and grab the stamina potion from it, chugging a generous half and willing himself not to choke. The effects are near instant, which is welcomed as the head bokoblin charges past the lesser archers and swings hard at the boy’s back.

The blow connects just barely—clanging off Link’s chainmail but not sharpened enough to wound. Link charges forward toward the end of the hallway—the yielding earth at the end of it looking like divine salvation. The temporary sense of immunity the potion imbues him with makes him briefly reconsider his choice to run—as the soreness in his muscles momentarily vanishes and he’s hit with a surge of energy, Link is _sure_ he could turn around and take the whole horde. He lingers on the words _temporary_ and _momentarily_ and a wiser part of him elects to keep moving forward.

The sanctuary’s such a warmly-lit blur around him, he barely registers when he takes out his mogma mitts, running on pure instinct alone. They’re far enough behind him now, it only takes one final push forward and he dives into the disturbed earth, leaving the world above behind.

The pungent stench of the volcanic soil all around him has never felt so welcoming, and he wants so badly to take the moment to catch his breath and shut his tired eyes, but… there’s a hypothetical gnawing at him, as he meditates on how soothing and quiet the universe is down here, and he really doesn’t want ‘several feet underground’ to be the next box ticked off on _Weird Places Link Has Fallen Asleep_ bingo. He pushes forward with the burst of stamina slowly waning, a silent prayer of gratitude to the Goddesses that this particular hole doesn’t have any moldorms crawling around it. Light filters down a little ways ahead, and Link takes another deep breath before making a break for it and resurfacing.

Head barely peeking over the divide, he takes in the isolated little room, nothing but dead, humid air and an opened chest nestled in the corner. _Right,_ he remembers. _There was a key hidden here._ Sure that nothing terribly taxing can touch him here, Link pulls himself above ground and collapses to his knees with one gloved hand pressed against the stone wall, an action he isn’t sure is entirely voluntary. 

It’s _so_ cold. The last leavings of the potion drift away and everything they were masking comes back twice as hard—in the numbness of it all Link hadn’t realized he was shivering. He can hear the flaming rivers rooms away as they simmer and churn, their mere presence throwing their warm front across his skin. Still he shudders harder, teeth pathetically clacking together, and the world starts to become bright and hazy.

Snapping back to consciousness at the sound of Fi’s ethereal half-chime is something he’s used to by now, having effectively turned the powerful spirit his Goddess so generously gifted him into a simple alarm clock. It’s welcome, usually—the way she pulls him from sleep with a gentle summary of what’s to be done and a plethora of advice on how to do it—Link doesn’t want to acknowledge to himself or anyone that right now it feels like he’s been caught sleeping in class. 

He knows Fi’s hovering over him as he curls in on himself, though his eyes are shut so tight he can’t see her there. The world’s frozen over, snow clouds swirling beneath Link’s bones, icing over and cracking them from the inside out. Every sound around him is like cannon fire, every thread he’s wearing touches down like knives on his skin. The world’s too loud, in all its ways of speaking. 

“Master,” Fi says. 

He jerks away from her voice, shaking his head. What Link’s refusing, he can’t say. She presses on, her tone unchanging.

“Though I do hold your wisdom on the matter of your own health in the highest regard, it would go against my duty if I didn’t inform you when it was wrong.”

Even the Fi-speak for _I told you so_ somehow sounds pleasant despite the cacophony around Link, her ceaseless patience the eye of the drenched and frigid hurricane raging outside. 

“It _does_ seem you’ve fallen quite ill,” she continues.

Weakly, Link pulls his hands away from where they’re drawn around his arms, fingers trembling as he responds.

“ _That c-can’t be it,_ ” he protests. _“It’s the earrings, th-they’re working too well, I have t-to—”_

He doesn’t finish the sentence, pawing uselessly at the sacred gifts in an attempt to remove them. It’s the only thing that makes _sense—_ that’s what they _do_ , right? Something in the design of them must be flawed, blasphemous as it sounds, and that’s why he’s in the depths of the blazing earth feeling like he’s going hypothermic, _that’s_ why—

“I calculate a 98% chance of your near-immediate demise should you remove the Fireshield Earrings in this part of the volcano. Given these odds, I would recommend against it.”

Fi’s words sound like absolutely nothing by the time they hit Link’s dizzy head, but the sweat drenching his palms and the ruined coordination he’s working with do a fine job of stopping him in her stead. He gives up, words slow and shaky as he attempts to articulate himself.

“ _It’s so cold,_ ” Link signs. “ _Why i-is it s-so cold? Do volcanoes h-have weather?”_

“The surface of Eldin’s peak remains at a steady 1600 degrees Celsius throughout the year,” Fi informs. “And your current state, Master, is due to an overactive immune response symptomatic of common pyrexia in humans.”

 _“Those aren't real words,_ ” he tells her, and she pauses for a moment before rephrasing.

“An approximation of your vitals tells me you’ve been burdened with a climbing fever for roughly the past two hours.”

Fi’s a gentle blur of amethyst and aquamarine, looking spritely as ever against the sepia backdrop of the tattered brick walls around them. Link tries to take in what she’s saying, feeling too weak to fight its inevitability any longer. The thing about Fi is she’s never wrong about anything. She’s not wrong about this, either, but…

Link’s thoughts are halted as his cough resurfaces, each ragged pulse another hammering wail on the thick, rusty nails pinning him to the floor. He feels the pain of them deeper than he’s ever known, clawing at the water’s surface and desperate for air. None of it makes _sense,_ he keeps circling back on the thought—why here—why _now—_

“ _That can’t be it,”_ he finds the strength to sign a second time. “ _There’s got to be something else, I—I’ve never felt this way in my whole life._ ”

Fi can attest to that much, at least. Though their formal meeting was only recently, she’s been watching over Link since the very day he was born. She’d no plans to tell him of this unless it was information he desired, but she’s seen every hardship—big and small—that he’d come to face over his incredibly few years. Like many things on his journey across the surface, this, too, is new. The sword spirit considers this, floating closer to where he is.

“Your doubt is reasonably warranted,” she says. “However, the life you lived on Skyloft prior to your journey beneath the clouds was distinctly self-contained to one single biome. I can confirm that the surface is rich with micro-organisms you’ve not been previously exposed to.”

The fog in Link’s head clears _just enough_ to take in most of what his partner is saying. There’s a curious upswing in her tone, one Link hears once in a blue moon. He can’t explain _why,_ but it feels like Fi’s version of a firm hand grounding him.

“And, Master, if I may be blunt—the marked anxiety towards your burdens alongside the lack of proper rest it’s caused has more than likely weakened your body’s immune response considerably,” Fi tells him. “Without remaining exceedingly vigilant, I conjecture there was a high probability of this happening.” 

The boy presses his palms against his eyes, exhaling the overwhelming misery wracking every inch of him in the form of a stubborn hiss through his teeth. All those who loved him would come to anticipate, adore, and resent this noise simultaneously, its cadence the starting signal to a brand of reckless strength signature only to the soul of Hylia’s chosen.

Hand still stuck to the wall for support, Link rises from the dungeon floor and stumbles back toward the burrow.

Fi watches unblinking as always, her unfathomably quick spirit running a couple trillion calculations as to what he’s doing before she speaks. In the infinite timelines she’s able to project, there are very few where he doesn’t plan to keep on through the volcano, and she finds herself wishing—wishing?—that this was a kinder one. Something in her programming seems to stutter on the thought, and she presses on past it with the greater picture in mind.

“The most effective course of action at this point in time is to return to the sky and rest until you’re well enough to travel again.”

Link is silent as he inches past her, his hands too busied with pulling his mitts back on to respond. It feels like hundreds upon hundreds of rooms tread already—lakes of lava and winding staircases and lizalfos after lizalfos, archers hidden behind golden structures and countless blunders pricking himself on thorny waterfruit. The end _has_ to be in sight. Of the dungeon, of the quest to temper his sword, of the grueling, agonizing, _unfair_ amount of time away from Zelda.

“...Master.”

Fi’s tone says nothing, the same icy song it always is, but her spirit says _are we really doing this now_ and _I cannot comprehend the function of the utter stupidity you are exhibiting_ and _Hylia, your grace, this babysitting job you assigned me is above my purely hypothetical pay grade._ Link can’t be sure of it, of course, but if _he_ were an ancient supercomputer, he’d calculate some sort of brilliant, high probability of that being the case. 

The sword spirit floats a ways forward to meet him where he is, desperate to persuade.

“Your current state is hardly optimal for survival in a place such as this, Master Link,” she says. “Resources in Skyloft are plentiful, and a few nights of rest to regain your strength have a low probability of negatively impacting your quest toward the spirit maiden.”

 _So tell me the numbers,_ one wicked voice inside Link’s head spits, and another one twice as venomous hisses back _you can’t handle them, coward_. He waves the both of them away, into the flames crackling off his skin where they burn and blacken and die. He doesn’t respond to his sword.

“Master,” she tries again after another pause, persistent in a way the both of them aren’t used to. Link shakes his head, turns so she can see his hands.

“ _You said it yourself, Fi—the surface is full of stuff my people aren’t well-equipped to handle,”_ he signs. “ _I can’t just go back up there and risk bringing whatever this is to Skyloft._ ”

Another beat of quiet falls between the pair. 

This point is… unexpected.

Fi recalculates. She’s… taken aback for a moment, hearing Link so bothered with the bigger picture. Her analyses, she feels, have pinned down his personality to a certain collection of traits—most of which she had on hand already, gifts from the first hero that his soul couldn’t shake. The foresight in the suggestion is hardly one she recognizes, and she compares variables in its wake, wondering if it’s growth in his spirit or more of his stubborn attitude parading around as a level-head. She can’t help but admire on principle the idea of being challenged by him in a battle of greater wit—his eye for what she had no sight toward, his confidence in speaking to it.

“...that is incredibly wise of you, Master. I retract my previous advice.”

She watches as the tension in his shoulders drops a little, something in his fever-fogged eyes she can’t identify. She tries for the boy’s aura in their wake, its brilliant green just as grey-daubed and faded. Link gives her no answers, buried within the walls of his own foolhardy spirit, turning back toward the safe haven’s exit. With each push forward, he expects to finally hear it—the sound of his companion sheathing herself, confident that she’s said all she could. The silence is maddening now, Fi’s sharp metal eyes still on his back.

“With this updated information, my amended advice would be to exit the sanctuary and find somewhere safe on the surface to recover.”

Link _wants_ to scream more than anything, conflicting emotions whirling inside him like angry dragons, coiled and bloodthirsty. Dreaming himself a creature of articulation, he wants to turn around and tell Fi that he knows, he knows, he _knows_ . He knows and he’s being stupid on purpose, he knows what the best thing to do is and it’s not a lack of understanding that keeps him from resigning himself to the necessity of it. Fi’s _exactly_ like Zelda in her eagle-eyed persistence, and Link can’t help but wonder if the Goddess saw through time and cut them of the same cloth entirely on purpose.

Fi’s still just hovering there silently, unsatisfied with the boy’s lack of response. Link sees her shift a little to speak again, rasps out an interruption before she can.

“Fi—” he says, and immediately realizes how bad of an idea it is, throat shredded and voice an ugly whisper. He cringes one eye shut and grabs at the swell of his neck reflexively—as if it would do anything to solve the problem—before immediately going back to signing.

“ _I can’t,_ ” Link tells her.

Fi tilts her head. “Do you require my assistance in navigating a safe path out?”

“ _I’m not going out,_ ” he signs. “ _I’m going to find the last sacred flame, and I’m going to haul myself back to Faron, and I’m not going to sit around wasting time like before._ ”

 _Before_ is vague, but Fi knows what it means—an incident far earlier in a dungeon much like this one, where a moment Link spared to nurse a particularly nasty burn had resulted in Zelda being captured by dark forces. The sword spirit had calculated the risk of it happening, but elected to say nothing, having projected an equally high chance of Impa arriving soon after to rescue her, canceling out the greater danger. 

Circumstances were far different, back then, but Fi’s noticed in her time spent with Link that he seems to have trouble recognizing things of that nature. The boy lives in his shortcomings, when it comes to Zelda and Zelda alone, unable to see the forest for the trees.

Fi picks her words carefully, intent to meet him where he is—lost in his own spiraling regrets. 

“While I admire your tenacity, Master Link, I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention the discrepancies in that comparison.”

Link grits his teeth. She’s trying _so_ hard, harder than he’s ever seen her keep at it. He doesn’t want to hear it. _It’s not important,_ he wants to shout. _I could have kept fighting through that burn, I could’ve gotten there in time, I could’ve stopped her from going through that._ And Fi would flutter her appendages with her calming nonchalance and tell him _not slowing down posed far more risk, the chances of your injuries taking a turn far higher than those of Zelda falling into the enemy’s hands,_ and Link would seethe in his own inability to say _it’s not about where she ended up, it’s about the pain she had to feel on the way there._

 _Pain that would have been mild in comparison to your own,_ the argumentative hypothetical version of his sword says.

And in his head Link yells _I’ll take it! I’ll take it. A thousand-fold anything Zelda would take, I’ll take it all if she never has to take a second._

How do you explain to something— _someone_ like Fi that self-preservation and logic have no place in worry, in protection, in love? Link already thinks himself atrocious with words, and to speak to why he fights when the fight is long over is like trying to grasp onto starlight. Wiser men have told him the pen is mightier than the sword, but Link was born voiceless with a blade already in his hand.

“ _Fi,_ ” he signs, swallowing hard. “ _I’m done talking about this._ ”

The spirit expects him to shy his gaze away, but he keeps his eyes on her own when he signs it, pleading and tired and wavering with weakness and conviction all at once. 

Fi’s quiet, still in the humid air. There is nothing she can say to a statement so neutral—no fallacies she can make note of, no projections she can stress, no observations she can make. Link draws a line with a desperation she’s not seen before, the closest thing he’s ever given to a genuine command. Logic within Fi suggests the response to this should be simple—as his servant, she’s to obey.

As his hand, she’s _designed_ to.

Fi… struggles with this.

She doesn’t want to be done talking about this. She wants to take his _I feel_ and counter it with an _understood, however_ but the idea of that is ingenuine to begin with because she _doesn’t_ understand, doesn’t know why he’s choosing the greater risk. Any hypotheses she can propose can’t reach her master where he is regardless, at present she’s calculated no combination of words she has within her breaking through the wall he’s put up so suddenly. But she doesn’t _want_ to give up, inexplicably resolute despite the odds. There’s no information present in the multitudes within her that account for the stubbornness prodding at her spirit.

His recklessness touched by her wisdom, her wisdom touched by his recklessness. It’s interesting data, if nothing else.

“...Very well, Master. As always, I will be right beside you should you need anything else.”

Even in the way she transforms back to light and vanishes into the sword, Link can see her hesitate—her particles fuzzy and struggling to stay where they are. The shifting tones of her chime are quieter, a whisper where he’s used to a song. That feeling crops up again—that there’s something going on with Fi he can’t make rhyme or reason of. The guilt of it all sits in his chest and crawls up his throat, and Link bites back tears he’s not ready for yet.

 _One more flame,_ he reminds himself, holding them steady behind his eyes. _Cry your heart out in Zelda’s arms._

For the rest of the trek toward the demon’s lair, Fi is silent at his back.

* * *

Dark energy crackles off the daggers in unpredictable bursts, every pulse like wildfire across Link’s skin. He makes another half-hearted attempt to pry himself from the stone wall where he’s pinned—on any other day, he’s _sure_ it would be nothing. Today, every inch of him is ablaze and aching, every movement like wading through blackened tar.

Ghirahim struts toward him with a confidence that knows its prey won’t be going anywhere soon, the carvings of two churning gears blurring like a cruel vignette behind him. His left sword is at Link’s blazing cheek, then, its freezing contrast sending an ugly shiver down the boy’s spine as it caresses him like some kind of twisted lover. The demon draws himself closer, his breath hot against Link’s face.

“You show up to our romantic, _fated_ showdown looking like some kind of _wretched_ plague rat,” Ghirahim seethes, eying the sickly flush dappled under Link's eyes. “You’ve got some nerve insulting the likes of _me_ , Link.”

Link stares head-on, refusing to back down an inch even in the wake of how completely helpless the whole situation is. His agility was lacking—the half a stamina potion not doing much, it was probably a given that he was going to end up stuck to something. The daggers aren’t heavy hitters, but like _all_ Ghirahim’s tools they’re sharper than any Link’s ever known, dug far down through his chainmail and into the sturdy slate behind him. 

_One more flame. It’s one more flame,_ he repeats in his head, a smile like sunlight on the other end of it, pushing him forward. _Think._

There’s a full heart potion still sitting untouched in his middle pouch, but there’s no chance of him being able to pry his arms away, and even if he could find the strength—his reflexes are baking in the furnace alongside his brain, utterly useless. A single ray of light in the overwhelming darkness is that Ghirahim regards the Goddess Sword in Link’s grip with complete indifference as he’s playing with his food. 

_A single… ray of light..._

“Let me hear that elusive voice of yours, boy. I’m simply _dying_ to know what you sound like as you _beg._ ”

Link’s arm is rigid and useless as it clings to the wall, but there’s still enough freedom in his wrists to feebly wiggle. His sword is in his hand still, and it’s _definitely_ a longshot, but—

He wheezes back a cry of agony as Ghirahim drives his blade deep into his shoulder, pressing their foreheads together in an attempt to memorize every line of pain as it crosses Link’s face. Light burns the edges of the boy’s vision and he fights the faint of it with all he is—refusing to think for long about the frigid trickle of blood that seeps down his arm, refusing give his opponent the satisfaction of his suffering. Link snaps his eyes back open and holds the demon’s gaze, meeting Ghirahim’s wicked smile with stalwart eyes. 

“Tell me where the second gate is,” Ghirahim says. “And I might find it in my overflowing heart to let you escape with your life.”

He twists the sword in, inch by grueling inch, completely unaware of how Link’s own hand seems to mimic his stall in perfect synchronicity. Silent and unobtrusive as its very wielder, it angles itself sluggishly skyward. Ghirahim keeps his eyes on the young knight, dissatisfied with the hush as Link soldiers wordlessly through the pain.

“Oh, you’ve gone and _changed_ on me, skychild,” the demon says, drawing his lips into an exaggerated pout. “Where’s that generous little boy from before?”

Teeth sharpened and bloodthirsty, he presses his second blade to Link’s throat, toying with the idea of it. The malice that burns off it is little compared to its razor-edge, and Link is certain in all his years as a swordsman that a blade so sharp can’t _possibly_ exist without the aid of the deepest, darkest magic. One single unsteady breath and Ghirahim would easily have his head.

“You remember, of course?”

The demon tilts forward again, silver-bright hair a wicked curtain around them.

“The last time we met here,” Ghirahim says. “And you left her for _dead._ ”

Holy light shoots up the Goddess Sword, and Link strikes as soon as he registers the song of its arrival. It’s not the cleanest slice by a longshot—a sharp flick of his wrist where he’d much prefer a full-body swing—but the point-blank range works in Link’s favour, throwing Ghirahim to the side with a barrage of searing brilliance. 

The divine blaze tears at the demon’s skin like electricity, shuddering waves of pain sending him crumbling to the ornate floors of the arena. Balanced on his arms in an attempt to stay conscious, Ghirahim doesn’t see Link tear himself from the wall at last, lumbering forward with ragged, wheezing, _unfinished_ breaths. 

Ghirahim looks up at Link, then—the stain of red potion as it lingers on his lips, the way that _deplorable_ sword of his still gleams in the lowlight, refusing to give. He bristles at the end of his opponent’s blade, knowing when he’s lost.

Link is grateful for the Goddess’ mercy when the door in front of him opens itself, and he tries to imbue his spirit with purpose as he raises his sword back toward the heavens, a wordless _thank you_. Din’s flame is big and bright and impossible to look at, its girth throwing embers into the boy’s already exhausted eyes. He hides behind the length of his sword, arms angled precariously in an attempt to shield his vision, and then Fi’s a blurry metal streak against the blinding scarlet. He can barely tell where she ends and the sacred fire begins, the world like watercolour around him.

He shudders, shoulders hunched up in an attempt to warm himself, the fire doing nothing as it hisses and booms against the walls, shifting and changing his sword. Din’s is the biggest and brightest of every flame so far, he marvels—Her power cascading off it in thick heatwaves that he can feel with every pulse against the divine blade at his fingertips. The sword explodes in a shower of light, the seafoam of its hilt turning to a brilliant royal blue, every soft curve of its design now sharpened and ready.

 _It’s_ _beautiful_ , Link notes, admiring the drastic new look and feeling utterly hypnotized in its wake. The sword practically whistles through the air when he tries for an experimental slash, feeling lighter and more like an extension of his arm than it ever has before. It’s a struggle to sheath the blade, even—every inch of the boy doesn’t want to stop _touching_ it.

He does, though—slides it into place at his back where it stays, despite the biblical temptation to do otherwise. Almost immediately, the adrenaline from the battle seems to drain itself from him entirely, and Link stumbles forward a little, directing his attention to the golden glow that prickles gingerly across the back of his hand.

It beams up at him with purpose, finally completed, a shape he’s seen carved reverently into temple walls and scrawled across textbooks, brilliant and warm. Structurally sound, perfectly balanced, its trifecta a truth as sure as the skies are blue. It’s… safe. The holy emblem feels like home, its mark a kiss from his Goddess pressed across his trembling hand.

Link relaxes finally, lets loose a breath he’s not sure how long he’s been holding. His spirit falters alongside it, flickering weakly as his body decides to remind him he’s not beyond its enslavement, and it’s incredibly tempting to give in now that the end is here, but he’s— _so close—_

The crimson flame starts to blur and waver in front of him, its whiplike tendrils melting into a filmy imprint of what Link knows them to be. White crawls at the edges of his vision again, and he makes a final, desperate attempt to shake it away. The thrall of it is far too strong—the rush of combat gone, the heart potion only able to do so much, the safe haven all around him bathed in divine protection and untouched by the monsters that crawl through the sanctuary’s halls. It feels like his insides are being pulled apart tendon-by-tendon, screaming at the boy to give in and collapse. 

The wall is too far away to brace himself upon, and his legs go before his sight does. Link falls to the floor like a puppet with strings cut, pawing at the tepid air in a last-ditch attempt to stay afloat. 

Din’s flame goes dark, and the world vanishes with it.

* * *

_Link gets there in the middle of it—he always does. A clumsy trip across the half-crushed cobble adds a second or two against him, and a second is all it takes for Ghirahim to heave Zelda over his shoulder and make his way to the bottom of the pit. The leisurely pace the demon insists upon stings harder than any blade he wields, its miserable crawl knowing just as well as Link that no amount of determination or strength can carry him forward in time._

_Every ember of Link’s spirit spits and hisses with the fury to move forward, cooking him alive from the inside out while his feet remain stuck to the edge of the Sealed Grounds. He tries to scream, to reach out in some feeble attempt to make contact with Zelda, but he’s a prisoner in his own body and helpless to watch while she writhes and screams and suffers in bloodcurdling agony._

_Ghirahim embellishes one final wave of his fingertips across her form as it hovers there, somehow still fighting him despite the dark magic keeping her bound and gagged. He tosses her toward the dark beast’s mouth like a ragdoll, its gnashing teeth threatening to crush her into a forgotten red stain on the cliffside. Its massive jaw opens, roaring at a volume that sends stone and brick crumbling off the side of the temple, and Link is helpless to do anything but watch as the demon lord’s cackle is the last sound she hears._

  
  


Static is all Link can comprehend when he wakes, electricity swimming in his fingertips, a blizzard in his vision, cold and numb and _buzzing._ It itches, it burns, it feels like nothing and everything all at once. He’s shivering—shivering so hard his teeth threaten to break against one another, drenched in sweat and feeling like he’s been thrown into a lake to drown. The burnt brown of the walls looks black all around him, the divine flame across it blood red and foreboding. Link presses his face into his palms and doesn’t have time for motivational mantras or promises to himself or the strength to find his unbreakable spirit where it is. He sobs, and sobs, and _sobs_.

It’s not the first time and it won’t be the last, some part of him knows that. That part of him is quiet now, having done all it can for the time being—even his optimism needs to rest sometimes.

Usually, his lowest moments start with a dream and end with the sound of his sword waking up beside him. She’s utterly silent now, the telltale chime of her arrival absent in the still air, and Link _knows_ it’s because he pushed her away, refused her advice, probably made her feel utterly _useless_. The Goddess _made her_ to do one thing and one thing only, and he couldn’t even allow her that purpose. He wants to rip his stupid heart out of his chest when he thinks about it, the guilt clawing him open and bleeding out, every nerve he has flayed and searing.

Link moves his palms up, digging his fingers into his bangs and tugging, his teeth pressed together as he sits there and resists the pathetic urge to tear his golden locks out from their roots, press his nails into fevered scalp until he bleeds. The sorrow in his weeping turns to anger—at his destiny, at the circumstance, at himself most of all.

He doesn’t hear Fi trying to breach the fortress, doesn’t realize that the silence at his side exists because she’s been outside the sword watching him since long before he woke. She tries addressing him one more time to no avail, moves on to the next option without taking the millisecond to calculate. She doesn’t need algorithms to press forward in this—it comes without thought, as natural to her as dancing.

Link jolts at the feeling of something brushing his cheek, scrambles for his sword before he realizes he has no idea where it is. With his eyes facing forward, still trembling and terrified, Fi doesn’t look real as she holds his frozen gaze. Her winglike arms flutter across his face, wispy and ethereal and unsure what realm of corporeality they exist within. Tears well up in his eyes all over again, the relief at seeing her too much for him to bear.

“Master Link,” she says, softer than she normally does. “Please look at me.”

He blinks a couple times, taking her in. Something in his breathing shifts a little, not evened out by a longshot but changing regardless. Fi breaks the contact slowly and gently, hovering a ways away to give him more space.

“Are you verbal, Master?”

Link shakes his head with the utmost ferocity.

“Can you sign?”

He pauses for a moment, staring at his trembling hands. He doesn’t really _want_ to expend the effort, but the other option is telepathy, and he’s far less fond of the feeling of whispers inside his head when he’s like this. He nods, but Fi can tell it’s with a certain hesitation. 

“Breathe deeply, Master,” she says, never a demand, far more like a wish. “Push out your stomach as you inhale.”

Link follows, forcing the motion to the best of his ability. His breath shudders and fights it—hiccupping sobs and waterlogged shivers and worn, tattered lungs working against him—but he persists, taking in what air he can through the tear in his throat.

“Excellent work,” Fi guides him. “Keep going. I will stay here beside you, as I always have.”

He tries not to lose himself all over again at the sentiment. He breathes, long and deep, exhaling the static and watching as it turns to fairy dust in the dark of the room. This works. He knows this works because it’s worked before. _Activating the parasympathetic nervous system is an incredibly efficient way to shut down the panic response that humans are known for_ , Fi had told him weeks ago as he marveled up at her, begging to know the answers to how she pulled him from episodes unlike anything he’d ever known.

The spirit can see Link’s aura stabilize in a flash, its wavering shape rounded out with his breathing. His tremors subside from a cascade to an aftershock, and she watches as he takes the reins once more, pressing his fingertips down the length of the hand opposite in an attempt at something tactile to ground him. He inhales once more, careful not to let it catch in his irritated throat.

“Prior data tells me you were likely troubled with nightmares before waking just now,” Fi says. “Is this correct?”

Link nods, fear pressing through his fever-bright blues. Fi’s questions exist more as a formality than anything, the routine of it all recorded firmly in her memory. She knows without reasoning out the numbers exactly what he’s going to say next, steels herself to not respond to it before he does.

“ _The dreams come true,”_ Link’s hands shake. “ _I saw you in my dreams before I met you. I saw that… that thing at the Sealed Grounds before I ever had to fight it._ ”

Fi allows a pause, a generosity that pretends she hasn’t heard it all before. There’s care in these talks she finds herself unsure of where she acquired, so different from the cold efficiency she takes with her everywhere else. 

“What did you see this time?” Fi asks. “Is it information you are able to relay to me?”

Link curls in on himself, working up the courage to put words to it. He tells her of the abysmal darkness that blankets the temple, of how his ears threaten to bleed at the horrible sound the beast lets loose. Of its burnt red hellfire halo pulsing and shifting and incomprehensible to the human eye, of how Ghirahim laughs with torturous mirth as Zelda dies in his master’s name. Of how the boy remains still and shackled through it all, unable to even cry as he watches.

“ _The dreams come true, Fi,”_ Link repeats. “ _I—He knows about the second gate, he’s going to find her—a-and he’s going to—to—_ ”

He trails off and takes another deep breath, putting his hands to better use—up at his shoulders, arms crossed over each other, tapping his fingers at the thin fabric of his undershirt. Another thing Fi had taught him, a little clumsily without fingers of her own to demonstrate. The motion calms what’s left of him down, but he elects to say no more. 

“The prophetic dreams you experienced prior to setting off were a curious gift from Her Grace indeed,” Fi states in his silence. “While I’m certain Her intent was to gradually transition you from your peaceful dwellings into what you now face, it is entirely understandable that the lasting effects of them have taken a toll on you.”

Link tears up again, and he’s simultaneously so sick of crying and so relieved to be back in the real world where he’s able to. Fi’s told him this what feels like a thousand times, but there’s no change in the steady tone she says it with, no matter how often she’s forced to repeat herself. Within her is patience the likes of which Link has never seen, not the slightest crack in her endlessly calm disposition.

“It is important that you know these reactions are normal,” the spirit says. “Humans are incredibly adept at evolving to survive, and it is more often than not the hyper-aware like yourself that last far longer.”

She watches as he palms moisture from his eyes, a slight grin tugging at the boy’s lips that’s timid and thankful for the reminder. Link doesn’t meet her eyes, smiling as he signs the next part of their well-rehearsed moment.

“ _‘However…’”_

Fi smiles back. It’s a rare sight, welcoming and warm.

“However,” she follows. “As you know, Zelda currently resides centuries in the past. While the demon lord may be aware of the existence of a second Gate of Time, his behaviour in your recent battle suggests he possesses no leads on where it’s located.

“Furthermore, this second gate remains in complete stasis and is unable to be used without the aid of sacred power that only you have access to, Master. As it stands, you are the only one capable of activating it, and thus it is you and only you who controls the way forward to the spirit maiden.”

Link wonders if she does it on purpose—that word _control._ If she knows, as vast as her breadth of knowledge is, that it’s the ultimate key to his elusive serenity. Since his Goddess pushed him from the cliffside head-first onto this path, it’s been hard to count the things he has reign over. 

“Given this information, I calculate the probability of dark forces reaching Zelda before you do to be a mere 4%,” Fi says, and then tacks on Link’s _favourite_ words in her vocabulary—“Rounded up.”

4%. Barely so. Link lets out another breath he wasn’t aware he was holding, shallow and nervous and _dissipating_. 

“4%,” he repeats it like a prayer—with his voice, not his hands. It feels better to say, better to feel as it passes his lips. Like he’s pushing the weight out of himself where it previously rattled against his ribs.

“4%,” Fi confirms again.

It’s low. It’s _so_ low. Some days low doesn’t work—he has to bite back the impulse to ask why not zero, has to fight with all he is not to forbid Fi from telling him the odds. Today, he knows in the way she says it—though he’s certain, it’s the same tone she always carries—that he’s living in that impervious 96%, untouched by his fears. Link’s calm, now, but he curls in on himself all the same, overwhelmed by something he can’t identify. The world goes away, and he presses his throbbing head into his knees, safe in the darkness of his folded arms as they rest on top. 

It’s silent for a moment, the only noise for miles the rhythmic snapping of the sacred flame. In the quiet of the room, Link freezes as he feels it again—featherlight fabric draped across his shoulders, the sensation of cold steel soothing the heat that’s cooking him alive. He pulls his eyes back into the light and feels her draw herself closer to him, pressing their faces side-by-side in a squish of an embrace that would read as trepidatious if its giver knew the feeling. 

Link almost crumbles all over again, having not been held like this in so terribly long. The closest he gets is the special way Groose roughs him up adoringly on pit stops at the temple, he barely has time to curl up in the sunlight with Aepon anymore. He can’t _remember_ the last time someone hugged him, and knowing Fi, he’s… not even sure that’s what’s happening, so he asks, incredulously—

“Um, Fi?”

She tilts her head, peering over at him while still holding on.

“I have data on record that shows that physical touch between social pairs has a high probability of soothing one’s emotional state.”

“Fi,” he repeats. “Are you hugging me?”

“...that is the colloquial definition, yes,” Fi says. “The effects should be immediate, Master Link. Do you notice any changes?”

The boy’s not sure if he’s stopped crying since he woke up, but he feels himself dissolving into it again, caught completely off guard from the tenderness of it all. Fi holds him, and he wordlessly nods, and he holds her back for a beautiful moment, his trembling hand wrapped around her side and tracing the golden hem of her dress. 

Link adores her. He doesn’t know when it happened—not when he feels like he’s known Fi forever. His whole life has been emotional high after emotional high, reckless rides through thunderstorms clinging to scarlet feathers, getting up in the school bully’s face and saving his words on the most cutting insult against his hair. Diving wingless into cloud cover without a care for what it means or how it upends his world, all in the name of one girl he never got to tell of his love. Link feels, and feels, and feels—leading him forward through hope and despair, always acting with no time to think. And Fi is everything he’s not, everything he lacks, everything he never knew he needed by his side.

He’s certain he’ll stay with Fi forever if she lets him, but even in some darker world where they part ways indefinitely, he knows he’ll still hear her voice in his heart. Urging him, every so often, to slow his stride and look to the bigger picture. Singing numbers and percentages in his ears when _it’s going to be okay_ isn’t enough, felling his anxious heart with raw data and precise truths.

It’s with her usual grace that Fi finally breaks the embrace, floating away wordlessly with a trail of glitter running off her heels. Link’s heartbeat steadies itself, and when he wipes his eyes this time they stay dry—signaling the return of his more right mind. Realizing all at once he has _no_ idea when he fell asleep, Link finally takes in his surroundings.

Things are… well, they sure are something, and a lot of little details aren’t entirely adding up. He remembers driving Ghirahim back, and tempering his sword with Din’s flame—the latter of which is still present, so he knows _where_ he is, at least. But he’s tucked into a familiar bedroll he has no memory of bringing to the surface, a dampened washcloth he presumably threw to the floor upon waking splayed across his sword and shield as they rest beside him. As the panic chases itself from his mind and the adrenaline kicks back down he remembers he’s ill on top of everything, which reminds him _right, I passed out right after finishing work on the sword, but how…?_

“What, uh…” Link stops, pressing a volley of weak coughs into his arm. “...what happened?”

“You pushed yourself far past your body’s limits and fell unconscious shortly after accessing Din’s sacred flame.”

 _Nice of my body to ignore those limits until I got somewhere safe,_ he ponders quietly, shuddering at the thought of it having happened even a moment sooner.

“How long was I out?”

“13 hours, 55 minutes, and 12 seconds.”

Fi watches as Link’s eyes go wide, his complexion somehow paling _even more_ beneath what the fever’s already taken from him. He makes an attempt to stand that’s almost immediately halted by her heel pressed half-heartedly against his chest—no force behind the motion, only intent. Fi doesn’t _need_ to exert any strength, anyways—her master collapses back in on himself as soon as he tries, glassy-eyed and weak and in no condition to move.

“Goddess, no,” Link moans, hands pressed against his tired eyes. “I lost so much time—”

Fi’s expression doesn’t change and her patience doesn’t falter, but for some reason Link feels the shadow of some sort of phantom emotion, as though it _should_. As though he expects it to. She regards him there, picking her words with purpose.

“Master, the Goddess Hylia was generous enough to supply me with a wealth of wisdom in her stead, and at this juncture I find myself wishing to pass it on to you in the hopes that it may put current circumstances into perspective.”

Link settles where he is, a little, tilting his head and looking toward her in a motion that wordlessly grants permission. She’s learned to recognize this as such, and carries on.

“Productivity towards one’s goals does not only come in the form of moving one’s feet forward,” Fi says, even-toned. “There are times when rest and care hold far more importance, carrying them forward all the same.”

It resonates. Link translates it in his head to something far more palpable, repeats it back to himself— _you’re no good to Zelda if you’re dead._ Fi pauses then, the way she often does before her tone turns inquisitive.

“Before you took up your destiny, I observed you maintaining this principle quite often,” Fi says, sounding a little playful. “You seemed to have no problem dozing off and daydreaming, so much so that I must admit it had me questioning the Goddess’ choices for a while.”

Link goes back to using his hands, not entirely sure what to tell her. “ _Things were… different back then. The only thing I really had to worry about was not studying for a big quiz, or if Groose was going to threaten me with my own woodworking supplies. Now the whole world is at stake, and I… it’s harder to slow down when I don’t even have my best friend to talk me through it._ ”

Fi angles her head forward, pauses for a beat of quiet.

“Unfortunately I possess insufficient data on the methods the spirit maiden might use in situations such as these,” Fi admits. “Forgive me for being of little help in this regard, Master.”

Link hates when she apologizes, always feels like he’s done something cruel to her when she feels the need to. A million reassurances swim through his head, because even if Fi copied Zelda beat-for-beat, it still wouldn’t be the same. He wants to tell her it’s not about the how but about the who, elects instead to turn his guilt to gratitude.

“ _No, Fi, you’re—_ ” he tries, restarts. “ _I don’t think I tell you enough, but you’re really good at making me feel better._ ”

“You have supplied me with this exact information precisely seven times, though I also lack reference for if this amount is excessive or not.”

Link makes a noise that’s half laughter half hacking, a perfect representation of exactly where he’s at. _“Make it eight, Fi. Thanks for always looking out for me._ ”

She carries the same expression as ever, repeating the same words she always has when he says it—

“As I’ve said, Master, your gratitude need not show. I am simply fulfilling the purpose granted to me.”

“ _Yeah, but…_ ” It never sits well with Link how she reiterates that, and he’s spent more hours than he’d admit trying to put words to why. He tries again, his hands moving slowly as he pieces them together. 

“ _You… really only need to… keep me alive, y’know?_ ” Link signs, smiling down at his knees. “ _Instead, you… well, you’re always making sure I thrive instead of just survive. I think… that’s special._ ”

The word _special_ rests in the humid air, and Fi feels it again—dithering in the ancient code that compiles her, a messy halt-unhalt she can’t explain. Its errant pulse against the crystal that glows embedded in her chest, the closest thing she has to a heart and soul. As the days go by she’s found it getting louder in the hush of her thoughts, and she takes note of it again and stops to calculate the probability of a flaw in her design. It always ends the same when she tries—with the sword spirit stuck on one rigid fact, the idea that Hylia would ever make such a mistake.

“...if you believe so, Master Link, then I am inclined to trust your judgment,” Fi says, feeling herself settle. “It is good to know I can be of use to you in this regard.”

Link knows it’s the best he’s getting, even if he wants to grab her by the shoulders and say _you don’t have to be of use to me, I’m just happy we’re friends._ He’s never liked that she calls herself his servant, bit his tongue far harder than usual in an attempt to not ask her to drop the ‘master’ from his name. He’s not good at having power over anyone or anything, and Fi knows just as well as he does that neither of them would be able to reach the heights they do without each other. They’re partners on equal grounds, he wants to tell her over and over and over again until it’s factual data she can internalize as a simple truth.

His thoughts are halted when another round of desperate coughs crawl back up his throat, and the wild metronome inside him shifts back toward _freezing cold_. Fi hovers closer as Link draws his covers over his shoulders, and it’s then that he remembers to ask—

“ _Oh, right!”_ he signs, poking his hands out from behind the bundle. “ _Where did all this come from?_ ”

“I took the liberty of gathering some necessary supplies to aid in your recovery,” Fi says.

Link blinks, a little dumbfounded. “ _I know you’re, like, a magical fairy thing who lives inside a sword, but have you always been able to make beds out of thin air?”_

“I cannot,” she tells him. “If you look closely you’ll recognize them as being from your own room back in Skyloft. I contacted the robot for additional help in retrieving them.”

There’s a stalled pause where the pallor on Link’s face gets worse somehow, his hands moving so fast it’s a miracle he’s coherent.

“ _You let Scrapper in my_ room _, Fi?!_ ”

He realizes his tone, dials it back a little even though logically he knows she can’t be offended. Predictably, she’s nonplussed as she responds.

“With utmost respect, Master Link, you were indisposed at the time and your comments on the matter were not entirely coherent.”

“ _Comments…?_ ” he blinks again. “ _You said I was out for half a day._ ”

“Your lucidity was questionably betwixt for a moment,” Fi says. “In your dazed state, you heard the robot approach and weakly insisted I allow you to perish from your illness.”

“ _Oh,_ ” Link signs, looking past her at nothing in particular. “ _Yeah, that… makes sense. Thanks for… not doing that._ ”

“Of course, Master.”

Link supposes he can’t be too bothered by any of that. Unconscious is the only way he _ever_ wants to deal with Scrapper, and the alternative of sleeping on the worn brick of the sanctuary floor doesn’t seem particularly appealing. He tries to get back in the habit of trusting Fi after the lapse in his judgment that got him into this mess, interrupts himself with another violent shiver. There’s a brief moment where he bemoans the very idea that he can’t get warm in a blasted _volcano_ next to a scalding pillar of holy fire crafted by the Goddess of Power herself, but it quiets itself at the thought that things would be a lot lonelier if Fi weren’t here with him. 

The sword spirit notices him shivering again, and gestures herself toward his side as she speaks.

“I can confirm your temperature has dropped slightly in the interim,” she says. “However, additional measures will need to be taken to bring you back to proper health.”

Link follows her posture, noticing what he hadn’t registered before: a distinctive, pumpkin-shaped bowl resting at his bedside. Like a doting mother who had somehow gotten herself trapped in the body of an AI, Fi had brought him _soup._

“ _You did not, Fi,”_ he signs.

“If you study the scene carefully, Master, you can very easily determine that I, in fact, did.”

“ _How?”_ Link marvels. “ _Did you take my rupees while I was passed out or something?_ ”

“I was prepared to make that sacrifice in the name of your wellbeing, but as soon as Pumm caught word that it was for you, he offered a sizable amount free of charge,” Fi says. “No doubt in part due to your rich patronage so far.”

Link looks to her, then back to the soup, then back to her again, his heart overflowing with complete adoration. He wants to wax poetic about how he’s touched—by the kindness of his sword in her patient and steady, by the kindness of mere acquaintances to him, doing more than they can ever know. Down on the surface, Link feels full and lonely all at once—homesick on cold nights, feeling like he doesn’t belong, and basking in the company of new souls unlike anything he’s ever known. The fullness and isolation of being so beautifully unique down here, he tries to remember that he is as unforgettable to the world as they all are to him.

He doesn’t know if it’s truly objective or due to the fact that he’s miserably sick, but this batch of pumpkin soup—still warm from Din’s watchful heat hanging all around them—tastes better than any he’s ever had.

A few hours are spent making small talk with Fi—or some semblance of it, at least—while Link absentmindedly strums his harp and fights sleep. He can feel in every corner of himself the wear of everything he’s forced himself through, but his mind remains restless with the involuntary impulse to _keep going,_ even as there’s no danger in sight. It’s a little maddening, and he talks to the feeling like he’s scolding a misbehaving child in his head, telling it to settle down and take a nap.

The thing about Fi is she’s never wrong about anything—Zelda is safe in the past with Impa watching over her in his stead. The best thing he can do for her now is shut his eyes, recover quickly, and get back to it when he’s feeling better.

Link rolls back over after signing a goodnight to Fi, shuts his eyes and waits for the sound of her disappearing back into the sword. Again, he hears silence where he expects the shifting tones of it, and she remains present at his side, watching him without a word.

“Uh,” Link says, not feeling up to turning around again or pulling his hands back out of the covers. “Do you… wanna get some rest too?”

Fi stares forward. “This form is artificial and does not require any sleep.”

“Well,” he responds. “Uh. I mean, did you want to… go back into the sword?”

She’s silent for a moment. “Is my presence disturbing you at all, Master?”

“No!” Link says hurriedly. “No, I like the company, I promise. Just… usually, you… when I sleep, you always kinda just hibernate in there, too. I was just wondering if there was a reason you were hanging out here.”

Another lurch in the spirit’s being, and Fi shutters it with calculations before it can get to her. A reason. A reason for her behaviour. Possibilities pop up and simmer out. She wants to keep an eye on him and monitor his health—low probability, she can do that without manifesting. She wants to keep watch on the area while he’s in a vulnerable state? The same—the evil around them has an easily detectable aura, and most of it wouldn’t dare near the sacred flame. Maybe the sword feels cramped? But nothing’s stopping Fi from making herself smaller, turning her body to stardust within its hilt. Nothing adds up—besides the stirring against her crystal heart, like a loftwing chick’s clumsy first flight.

“...I apologize, Master Link. I am… unsure.”

Link turns in his sleeping bag without a second thought, utterly incredulous as he faces her. The inclination to lean forward and check _her_ for fever is almost too tempting.

“You? _Unsure?_ ” he marvels. “Are _you_ coming down with something too?”

Fi considers this. It’s a rhetorical question, but those don’t exactly exist in the realm where she finds her home.

“Again, the form I appear to you as is inorganic and thus incapable of falling ill,” she says. “I’ve... considered the possibility of a glitch in my creation, but with all the data I have on hand, the probability of Her Grace making such an error remains at only 6%.”

Link stares at her, sitting back up in his bedroll to communicate easier. It’s mystifying, hearing her sound the way she does right now—unsettling and kind of special all at once.

“ _Something_ has _been going on with you,_ ” he signs, stating it to himself as much as he is to her. “ _I was wondering if I was just imagining it._ ”

“I am functioning at full capacity, despite minor changes in my internal responses to certain sets of data.” Fi assures him flatly. “At the moment, these responses are urging my spirit form to remain beside you, Master Link. It seems that I lack the ability to determine their origin at this time.”

Link takes in what she’s saying, through all the doublespeak she can’t help but wrap her meanings in—it always takes him a moment, even when he’s not feverish and dizzy. The sentiment starts to register, and his heart swells alongside it as he realizes where she cannot.

“ _Fi… are you_ worried _about me?_ ”

The air is still and serene within the room, and Fi considers this as well, up against her scenarios from before. Logically, of course, the idea of it makes no sense. Hylia crafted her with a single purpose—to be the hand that serves her chosen, calculating and precise, wise and sharp, a machine without flaws. Worry was emotion, and to emote was human, and she was a weapon, not a human soul.

Her data suggests she is incapable, but she realizes in this moment, and not a moment sooner... it’s an incredibly small sampling with her at the center, and the way she’s been regarding it is notably incomplete. There’s only one other of her kind to look to and observe, and she plays his dramatics like a movie in her head—

_Furious! Outraged! Sick with anger!_

But... what makes him different? From what Fi’s heard of him, the demon king is just as precise as Her Grace in his working—that’s what made him such a blight upon the world, posing such a threat that she needed Fi in the first place. All Ghirahim has on Fi is a couple centuries of sentience and the title of a demon—as much as Fi doesn’t prefer to compare them to one another, their similarities greatly outweigh their differences. 

Centuries. Centuries on her, to breathe, to know, to observe and to destroy. It’s the biggest contrast in their making—how much longer Ghirahim’s stalked the surface with the blood of thousands known and conquered stuck to the end of his blades.

She wonders, then, a new hypothesis fluttering into her projections, grinding all her processes to a jolted halt—

Can a heart... be _grown?_

Fi regards her master, tranquility settling on her shoulders the moment she catches his eyes again. She meets him where he is.

“...I’ve arrived at the conclusion that there is a moderate probability of that being the case.”

There’s no numbers in her conclusion, and Link chooses not to pry, all his strength focused toward trying not to cry again when he _knows_ he’s just going to dehydrate himself further. He doesn’t have the words to tell her how it makes him feel, anyway—the icy spirit and her level-head somehow loving him of all the people she could love.

He kinda just wants to hug her again, so he does. Link pulls her out of the air where she’s floating and holds her close.

“Thanks, Fi,” he says out loud, not wanting to let go of her. “Nine times, okay? For everything it feels like I lost since I found out about my destiny… it’s good to remember that I gained someone like you.”

Fi doesn’t say anything about her purpose or her duty, this time, and Link notices with a warmth in his heart. The spirit wonders if Hylia planned this for her—to love her master like Ghirahim so reverently loves his. Before she knew Link, it had seemed like such a distraction, the way humans would crumple to nothing under the weight of their own inescapable sentiment. Fi doesn’t feel a collapse, though—it’s an ache that thrums some strange sort of beautiful, urging her to move rather than to fall. Urging her to act when before she remained still. 

She draws her sleeves around Link, starring the embrace as precious data as it becomes a memory around them. 

“I believe the feelings are mutual, Master.”

Link adores her, in every new mystery she brings to his life, and he holds onto her for as long as he’s able, stopping only when the itch crawls back up his lungs and he has to break away from her to ugly cough into his blankets. Without missing a beat, Fi snaps right back into her role as his dutiful caretaker.

“Resting as you initially planned seems the best course of action right now,” she says. “I anticipate you’re eager to get back on track toward Zelda.”

As if on cue, Link stifles a yawn. “ _Yeah, good plan. You’re free to watch me if it makes you feel better._ ”

“Understood, Master Link,” she nods. “Is there anything else you require of me before you take to bed?”

Link pokes his tongue out in thought, dwelling on how hard it was to pry himself away from her a moment ago. The sacred flame snaps and spits, and the heat of it beats down on him oppressively, cooking him from every angle. It’s… an unusual request, with very little precedent, and it makes way more sense in his head than when he tries to articulate it.

“ _...can we cuddle?_ ” he signs, a little nervously.

Fi looks at him, her silence feeling like an explanation owed, its presence her version of a curiously raised eyebrow. Link presses on, attempting to put words to his thought process. He uselessly presses his own palm to his forehead, as if it’ll do anything to gauge where he’s at.

“ _I feel like I’m still running hot, and—_ ”

“—your body temperature has remained at precisely 38.7 degrees Celsius for the duration of the last hour—”

“ _—right, and you’re all metal...y, and cool… and also… my friend…_ ” Link struggles, blushing a little the more he’s forced to say. “ _So it feels extra good to hug you… right now. Am I making sense?_ ”

 _From the perspective of anyone else, no,_ Fi ponders, _no you are absolutely not._ But she’s learned in her time beside him that every barely coherent impulse hides behind it a worthy reason, and finds she rarely regrets trusting Link in all she can’t understand about him. Worlds of difference separate the two of them, and Fi can’t help herself from slowly coming into the truth that these facts, like everything else, were something their Goddess intended from the start. 

“Your lucidity appears to be reasonably present at this moment, Master. I... see no downsides to heeding this request.”

Link presses his head back up against the pillow, and Fi settles into him with her wings thrown cautiously over his hip. It feels a little strange to her, to be touching the ground like this, the freedom of flight all she’s known until now with no good reason to land. Link draws the spirit close, pressing her temple to his chest, and he’s asleep in the same flash he always is, his breathing slow and even despite the quiet wheeze that’s crept into it.

Fi knows she doesn’t need to once he’s fallen asleep, but she feels— _feels?_ —inclined to stay with him until he awakens once more. She tries to push the thought from her mind, wonders why she’s dwelling on it when before it was but a simple, unobtrusive fact—

Their time together is growing short.

She stares past the cut of Link’s shoulders to where the sacred flame towers, remembering the righteous feeling of it shifting and changing her form, melding her into something stronger. And Fi thinks about Link, a sleepy boy from a peaceful era who’s grown into a fierce and adept fighter but kept his stalwart heart. How she’s always admired the curious, ineffable way that humans grow and change. Hylia loved that about them, too. 

The memory hits Fi far louder than the others, not a melody she’s to croon but a simple image of life before. The warm springtime sun breaking through the clouds, birds hopping at the iridescent bangles that hang over the Goddess’ feet. 

_Are you afraid, Your Grace?_ Fi can hear her own voice somewhere far away. 

_Of what, little songbird?_

_Abandoning your divine powers. Being human._

In her memories, Fi expects hesitation—but the Goddess remains a warrior who carries none, not a moment in between her words.

 _Not for a second, child,_ Hylia tells her, her voice clear as song but her face faded and light-bleached with time, golden hair like sunlight across her shoulders. _There is no life more precious than the life of a mortal._

Din’s flame crackles, and the memory blurs along its edges. The Master Sword sleeps in its sheath, the crest a ways away burnt with the light of the skyward strike from yesterday. Fi doesn’t know why here, why now.

6%. She recalculates. No, 2%. The Goddess does not make mistakes. 

She holds onto Link, after so many moments where he instead held onto her, calloused palms strong and protective around the sword’s graceful threading. His heartbeat is steady, young and alive and human. Fi can’t feel the sensation of him there against her skin—but still, somehow, she’s warm.

 _To love. To feel. To break. To persist in ways that defy that mortality,_ Hylia whispers.

Fi recalculates. 1%.

 _He’s shown me, songbird,_ she says, her face barely out of the shot of Fi’s recall. _So I go without fear._

.65%... .42%...

 _I do not comprehend the function of these emotions, Your Grace,_ Fi tells her. _But now and forever, I trust you._

 _That will suffice, little one._ A smile like harp strings on a sunny morning, and the Goddess draws the spirit close.

_Perhaps when you meet him, you too will understand._

Din’s flame crackles. Fi’s racing mind settles.

0%. 0%. 0%.

She holds onto Link. 

The Goddess does not make mistakes.

**Author's Note:**

> i didnt know u cant skyward strike ghirahim when i wrote this because i never skyward strike SHIT when i play this game. this is an au now i guess. thanks for reading


End file.
